“You can’t still blame this on her, Maven,” I hiss at him, stepping back. “Don’t lie to me and say you’re doing this because of a dead woman.”

As fast as his tears came, they disappear. Wiped away, as if they never existed. The crack in his mask seals shut. Good. I have no desire to see the boy beneath.

“I’m not,” he says slowly, sharply. “She is gone now. My choices are my own. Of that I am infinitely sure.”

The throne. His seat in the council chamber. Plain things compared to the diamondglass artistry or velvet his father used to sit. Hewn of blocked stone, simple, without gems or precious metal. And now I understand why. “Silent Stone. You make all your decisions sitting there.”

“Wouldn’t you? With House Merandus leering so close?” He leans back, propping his chin on one hand. “I’ve had enough of the whispers they call guidance. Enough to last a lifetime.”

“Good,” I spit at him. “Now you have no one else to blame for your evil.”

One side of his mouth lifts in a weak, patronizing smile. “You’d think that.”

I fight the urge to seize whatever I can and bash his head in with it, erasing his smile from the face of the earth. “If only I could kill you and be done with this.”

“How you wound me.” He clucks his tongue, amused. “And then what? Run back to your Scarlet Guard? To my brother? Samson saw him many times in your thoughts. Dreams. Memories.”

“Still fixated on Cal, even now, when you’ve won?” It’s an easy card to play. His grins annoy me, but my smirk vexes him just as much. We know how to needle each other. “Strange, then, that you’re trying so hard to be like him.”

It’s Maven’s turn to stand, his hands landing hard on the desk as he rises up to meet my eye. A corner of his mouth twitches, pulling his face into a bitter sneer. “I’m doing what my brother never could. Cal follows orders, but he can’t make choices. You know that as well as I do.” His eyes flicker, finding an empty spot on the wall. Looking for Cal’s face. “No matter how wonderful you might think he is, so gallant, brave, and perfect. He would make a worse king than I ever could.”

I almost agree. I’ve spent too many months watching Cal walk the line between Scarlet Guard and Silver prince, refusing to kill but refusing to stop us, never leaning to one side or the other. Even though he’s seen horror and injustice, he still won’t take a stand. But he is not Maven. He is not one inch the evil that Maven is.

“I’ve only heard one person describe him as perfect. You,” I tell him calmly. It only maddens him further. “I think you may have a bit of an obsession where Cal is concerned. Are you going to blame that on your mother too?”

It was meant to be a joke, but to Maven it is anything but. His gaze wavers, only for an instant. A shocking one. In spite of myself, I feel my eyes widen and my heart drop in my chest. He doesn’t know. He truly doesn’t know what parts of his mind are his own and what parts were made by her.

“Maven,” I can’t help but whisper, terrified by what I may have stumbled upon.

He draws one hand through dark hair, pulling at the strands until they stand on end. An odd silence stretches, one that exposes us both. I feel as though I have wandered somewhere I should not be, trespassed into a place I really don’t want to go.

“Leave,” he finally says, the word quivering.

I don’t move, drinking in what I can. For use later, I tell myself. Not because I’m too numb to walk away. Not because I feel one more incredible surge of pity for the ghost prince.

“I said leave.”

I’m used to Cal’s anger heating up a room. Maven’s anger freezes, and a chill runs down my spine.

“The longer you make them wait, the worse they’ll be.” Evangeline Samos has the best and worst timing.

She blazes through in her usual storm of metal and mirrors, her long cape trailing. It picks up the red color of the room, glinting crimson and scarlet, flashing with every step. As I watch her, heart hammering in my chest, the cape splits and re-forms before my eyes, each half wrapping around a muscled leg. She smirks, letting me watch, as her court dress becomes an imposing suit of armor. It, too, is lethally beautiful, worthy of any queen.

As before, I am not her problem, and she turns her attention from me. She doesn’t miss the strange current of tension on the air, or Maven’s harried manner. Her eyes narrow. Like me, she takes in the sight. Like me, she will use this to her advantage.

“Maven, did you hear me?” She takes a few bold steps, rounding the desk to stand alongside him. Maven angles his body, ghosting swiftly from one of her hands. “The governors are waiting, and my father himself—”

With a vicious will, Maven grabs a sheet of paper from his desk. Judging by the florid signatures at the bottom, it must be some kind of petition. He glares at Evangeline, holding the paper away from his body as he flicks his wrist, drawing sparks from his bracelet. They light into twin arcs of flame, dancing through the petition like hot knives through butter. It disintegrates into ash, dusting the gleaming floor.

“Tell your father and his puppets what I think of his proposition.”

If she’s surprised by his actions, she does not show it. Instead, she sniffs, inspects her nails. I watch her sidelong, well aware that she’ll attack me if I so much as breathe too loudly. I keep quiet and wide-eyed, wishing I’d noticed the petition before. Wishing I knew what it said.